Troubleshooting your results

We validate every 3DMark and PCMark score to ensure it is an accurate measure of the system's performance and has not been affected by other factors. Invalid results are not suitable for comparing hardware, are not shown on our leaderboards and usually cannot be used to enter benchmarking contests run on others sites.

This page lists the most common reasons for invalidating scores and helps you fix the problems that prevent you from submitting valid results.

Graphics driver is not approved

This message is shown when your system has graphics card drivers that we have not (yet) approved.

In order to ensure that drivers do not breach our Driver Approval Policy, we tests video drivers and validate the results. Drivers are sent for testing and approval as soon as they are published. This process takes normally no more than 3-4 working days after driver release. Any results uploaded during this time initially shows as "not approved" but will turn to approved results when the driver approval process is complete for the specific driver version - you do not need to do anything, your result will transform into approved result in time.

Results obtained using beta, "hotfix" or otherwise non-WHQL drivers will also show this message and normally non-WHQL drivers are not approved for use with our benchmarks unless specifically requested by the graphics card vendor.

If there are no WHQL certified drivers yet for your video card/chip - usually if you buy your hardware as soon as it becomes available - you will have to wait until the first WHQL approved drivers with support for your card are made available for valid results. You can benchmark even with beta drivers - the results just won't be shown as valid and the result page will show that the drivers are not approved.

Processor is not recognized / Graphics card is not recognized.

This message appears when we cannot identify the hardware in your system. The most likely cause is either that your hardware is very new or quite rare.

First, make sure you have the latest SystemInfo module installed. This is a common component used in many UL benchmarks to identify the hardware in your system.

If your processor or graphics card is still not recognized, go to this support page and add a link to your result together with the details of your processor or graphics card. We will then update our database and your hardware will be shown correctly.

This message appears when you run 3DMark Fire Strike, 3DMark Sky Diver, or 3DMark 11 on AMD/ATI video cards using non-default Tessellation Controls in the AMD Catalyst control panel.

To submit a valid result, return Tessellation Controls to the default setting "AMD Optimized" in the AMD Catalyst control panel and re-run the benchmark.

Unable to verify AMD Catalyst tessellation setting, result invalid.

This message appears when you run 3DMark Fire Strike, 3DMark Sky Diver, or 3DMark 11 on ATI/AMD video cards with older versions of Futuremark's SystemInfo module. With older versions of SystemInfo there is no way to verify if AMD Catalyst Tessellation Controls have been modified.

This message appears when you run any 3DMark test with NVIDIA video cards using non-default LOD bias setting override.

To submit a valid result, either remove the modification you've made to the LOD bias or reinstall NVIDIA video drivers with "clean install" option to reset all drivers settings to default and re-run the benchmark.

This message appears when you run any 3DMark test with NVIDIA video cards using non-default Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling setting override.

To submit a valid result, either remove the modification you've made to the setting using NVIDIA Inspector utility or reinstall NVIDIA video drivers with "clean install" option to reset all drivers settings to default and re-run the benchmark.

Result's FPS score is too high to be valid.

This means the measured framerates of your result are too high for the hardware used and the detected clock speeds, indicating that either hardware was detected incorrectly, the test somehow failed to complete normally, or the result was obtained by tampering the driver settings in a way that changes the rendering workload. Try reinstalling your video drivers with "clean install" and re-run benchmark. If this does not solve the issue, contact our support with a link to your result.

Benchmark version does not properly support 3 or 4 GPU systems. This result does not properly show the full capabilities of this system.

This means you are running a very old version of 3DMark Fire Strike with three or four GPUs in SLI or Crossfire. Update to the latest version of 3DMark and re-run benchmark.

This result is invalid as Virtu MVP HyperFormance was enabled. Please uninstall Virtu MVP completely and re-run the benchmark.

This message can appear only with motherboards that support Lucidlogix Virtu MVP HyperFormance technology. HyperFormance modifies the rendering in the benchmarks in a way that makes the score unsuitable for comparing system performance with results that do not use it. You should uninstall Virtu MVP completely and re-run the benchmark to get a score that can be used for comparisons.

Scores obtained with Virtu MVP present in the system are not accepted to the Hall of Fame and cannot participate in any benchmarking contests run by us.

SystemInfo scanning was not enabled for this benchmark run. Please enable SystemInfo from benchmark settings and run re-run the benchmark.

This means that SystemInfo module was disabled for the run, either on purpose or due to an error during gathering the required data. Results can't be validated without Futuremark SystemInfo data that describes the hardware configuration and system settings used.

There was a problem reading the Futuremark SystemInfo data. Please contact our support and include a link to this result.

This message should generally never happen but if it comes up, it means that the data gathered by SystemInfo module is somehow corrupt and we couldn't properly parse it. Assuming you have not actively tampered with the SystemInfo scan data in the result file, you should definitely report this error to our support and include a link to the result so we can investigate what is causing it to happen with your result.

Non default settings were used in benchmark. Score could not be calculated.

This warning means a required test was not included in the benchmark run. 3DMark and PCMark only return an overall score when using one of the default benchmark presets. You can use sub-scores (Graphics, Physics etc.) for comparisons but you must take into account the modifications done to the settings and how they alter the test workload.

Non default settings were used in benchmark. Result is not comparable to other results.

This warning is shown when you run the benchmark using custom settings. 3DMark and PCMark Advanced and Professional Edition benchmarks offer a wide range of options to customize a benchmark run for detailed investigation of system performance. Results from such custom runs are not comparable with results from other systems, however, unless the exact same settings are used in both cases.

Usually custom settings are used for investigating how the performance of a single system changes when varying the benchmark load. For this purpose, comparison is still possible by directly comparing scores from individual tests, such as the Graphics Score and Physics Score in 3DMark 11 for example.

Time measuring inaccurate

This message indicates funny business with the system clock during benchmark run. In most cases, this means that, no, you cannot cheat in 3DMark by adjusting Windows timers during the benchmark run or otherwise tampering with the measurements done by the benchmark. If this message persists and you have not done anything out of the ordinary, it may indicate a hardware issue with the real time clock in your system or the presence of a background program that somehow twists the time-space continuum of your operating system in such a way that this anti-cheat detection is tripped.

Time Spy results from this version of the benchmark are not valid. Please update benchmark to a newer version

This message is shown when running the Time Spy benchmark in 3DMark v2.2.3488. This version of 3DMark has a user interface bug where adjusting the output resolution improperly adjusts the internal rendering resolution of the Time Spy test. All Time Spy scores from this specific version of 3DMark are flagged as invalid due to this bug. To get a valid score, please update 3DMark to the latest version and re-run benchmark.

The physics score is invalid as PhysX GPU acceleration was used.

This message means your 3DMark Vantage benchmark run used PhysX GPU acceleration, running PhysX on the NVIDIA video card instead of on the CPU. You can fix this issue by selecting "Disable PPU" in the benchmark settings or by disabling GPU PhysX in the NVIDIA driver options, and then re-running the benchmark.

Result is invalid

This message appears if your result was otherwise deemed invalid. Usually this indicates a corrupt or tampered result file or tampered benchmark executable. If the problem persists, contact our support team with as much detail as possible.